Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Right-To-Work Reaches 27 States: Why It Matters

The battle lines have been drawn in Washington DC.
President-Elect Donald Trump will be President-Inaugurated in a week and a half.
Mexican cement companies have already offered bid to help build the Big,
Beautiful Wall (with or without a door?). The US Senate Republicans already
voted to repeal Obamacare. So happy! Now they have to agree on one plan.

US Senator Jeff Sessions is sparring with his colleagues as
the next Attorney General designate, one who will uphold the rule of law rather
than pursue political agenda at the expense of moral authority. ExxonMobil oil
magnate Rex Tillerson is on his way to become the next Secretary of State, with
the courage to call out the foreign policy fecklessness of the previous administration.
The desperation of demoralized Democrats, doubling-down on their stupidity,
should warm Republican hearts and political fortunes chances heading in to
2018.

But there’s bigger news happening in one state, which means
good news for all fifty. A fairly well-known conservative reform was gaining notoriety
and headlines. Because the #FakeNews outlets are busying themselves with Donald
Trump’s latest tweets or all the hoopla about Russia, we haven’t heard too much
about it. Or maybe because the liberal media doesn’t want to admit that the blue
wall of Democratic dominance is taking on another breach.

In Kentucky, Governor Matt Bevin (only the 4th
Republican governor in the last 100 years) just signed into law right-to-work
(RTW) legislation, which makes the Bluegrass State the 27th RTW state. Yes, this labor reform has been on
the upswing the last six years. It’s become fairly predictable to determine which
state will enact the policy next, since an average of one state per year has this
adopted pro-liberty, pro-free market, pro-worker, pro-good government policy.

So, who cares about RTW State #27, and why should it be
headline news, especially for the freedom fighters in our midst and across the country?

1. The
rapidity of the passage of this reform. Within a week of Kentucky’s 2017
legislative session opening (with GOP legislative majorities for the first time
in 90 years), Governor Bevin signed off on this law. No time wasted. Michigan
Governor Rick Snyder signed off on RTW during the lame duck session for year
2012. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker didn’t go after it until his second term
began in 2015.

2. The
sweeping nature of the reforms. Governor Bevin and his Republican legislative
colleagues went big. Not just RTW, but Bevin approved paycheck protection,
which means that employees must opt in to have their union dues deducted
instead of opting out. They also repealed “prevailing wages” laws, which will
make contract bidding more efficient and less costly to Kentucky taxpayers.

3. The boldness to enact these comprehensive reforms. Not even six years ago, Indiana governor Mitch
Daniels and other Republican Governors in the Rust Belt played coy about
Right-to-Work. Snyder told the legislature early in the 2012 session that labor
reforms were not on his agenda. Scott Walker convinced audiences during the
2012 recall that such legislation would never come to his desk. Fast forward
now, and Kentucky (as well as Missouri and New Hampshire) Republicans campaigned
on RTW in their respective bids for office.

4. This reform will unshackle individual liberty and opportunity
throughout the country. In fact, Kentucky’s RTW victories began in 2014, when
individual counties began declaring themselves “Freedom To Work” zones. Despite
lawsuits which followed, regional and city governments which ended compulsory membership
and forced dues for individual workers already enjoyed stronger economic growth.
Despite a series of lawsuits to block this practice, the
6th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals has defended the practice.

This is good news for the other states in the region,
including Ohio, which hit a brick wall after Ohio Governor John Kasich signed
off on sweeping collective bargaining reforms, which exceeded Walker’s Act 10
legislation, and were stuck down following a massive union-backed initiative
campaign the next year.

This development is now good news for everyone:

5. Democrats across the country are losing their most
reliable source of revenue. Labor unions are the backbone and front wallet of
the already decimated Democratic Party. For the last three decades (at least), Democrats
have relied on the union phalanx for forced membership and dues to line their
pockets, purchase politicians, who in turn pass laws protect their limited,
anti-business, anti-taxpayer interests. Progressive, socialist elements run
these unions (they are, after all, collectivist at their core), and they push
climate alarmism, abortion, LGBT tyranny, gun control, and other anti-liberty
measures. This reform will hammer one more nail in the
Communist-Socialist-Democratic Party and its perverse agenda. And there’s
nothing that the once all-power labor unions can do about it.

6. Republicans as a party, and Americans as a whole, have a
golden opportunity to sweep out the last vestiges of the Obama Administration
and the strait-jacket of Democratic dominance in otherwise untouchable states
like Illinois (where the SEIU has more power than the state government itself),
New York (where Mario Cuomo is doubling down on liberal lunacy, like forced
minimum wage hikes), and even California, where the California Teachers
Association decides what passes and what fails.

The end of forced unionism means a restoration of our
individual voter franchise, where special interests are not overriding
individual voters. It also means that state legislatures can tackle meaningful,
long-term entitlement reforms, and restore funding to core functions of local
government to the people.

It’s about freedom. It’s about choice, and it’s about time
that more people appreciate what RTW is doing for this country.